


The Beginning of the Road

by TheBitchcrafter



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Genocide, Teen Wolf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 05:38:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1846345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBitchcrafter/pseuds/TheBitchcrafter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of how Sheriff Stilinski finds his path. Set in the universe of Devilscut's "Cherry Pie" but eight years prior to those events. John decides that being a good man is more important than his own safety.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beginning of the Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [devilscut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilscut/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Cherry pie](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1565096) by [devilscut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilscut/pseuds/devilscut). 



> Devilscut was gracious enough to allow me to write a short fic set in one of her worlds. This work could stand alone, but you should read her story first for reasons. The "Argent Administration" and their attempted extermination of supernaturals are entirely her creations.  
> The characters of Sheriff Stilinski and Alan Deaton belong to MTV.

In the late night silence of the Sheriff’s Department, the muffled snaps of the lawman’s spine popping back into place as he stretched seemed to echo through the cluttered space. Deputy Stilinski had been off shift for hours, and he should have been at home, getting some well-deserved rest. The dark smudges under his weary eyes told the tale of too much time spent away from his family and his bed.

John considered closing the worn manila folders on his desk and calling it a night, but he straightened himself in his chair and pulled his paperwork closer instead. Since his wife’s death six months before, his only family was his ten year old son. Due to the late hour, John hoped that Stiles was already asleep at the McCall’s, and his empty house held no allure.

A familiar resentment tried to fill his chest as he looked over the folder in front of him. John had been relegated to handling only the most cut-and-dried, straight forward, boring cases that came into the department. The sheriff claimed he was doing John a favor; that the deputy needed the lighter case load due to the emotional stress of Claudia’s death.

The truth was far less charitable. He was no longer trusted by the Sheriff or any of the so called “advisors” that were provided by the Department of Health and Human Services. Under the Argent administration, HHS had expanded the scope of its mission from protecting the health and well-being of all citizens to exterminating all non-humans.

The HHS still oversaw the Center for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration, but it also formed several new agencies with the sole purpose of “protecting” humans from anyone deemed dangerous or unnatural. They had also placed representatives in nearly every law enforcement agency throughout the country, even small town Sheriff’s Departments.

John had the misfortune to draw the attention of the Beacon Hills agents after the death of his wife. He still had no idea why Claudia had been at the Hale house on the day of the HHS raid on the property, but she had been caught in the massacre.

Not that the government calls it that. According to the HHS, it was a legal and necessary raid on known xeno-terrorists.

The deputy’s frustration and anger grew as he thought about Claudia’s death. The official reports stated that she had died of trauma from a bite wound. John had been told that the Alpha, Talia Hale, had attacked and bitten Claudia in an animalistic frenzy. They had no explanation for why a woman who had been his wife’s best friend since childhood would do such a thing.

A friend in the medical examiner’s office had risked her own job and safety to slip John information about Claudia’s death. It was true that she had a bite on her hip, just below her waist, but the bite had been sustained _after_ a fatal gunshot wound to the upper chest.

John had to believe that HHS agents had shot Claudia in the confusion of the raid and that Talia had tried to give her the bite to save her life. He would never know for sure because both women were dead. The Hale family had been all but wiped out, and the survivors were on the run from authorities.

The fact that the government has covered up the true cause of death for his wife only served to increase John’s suspicions about the actions of the HHS. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much he could do about it. Like many citizens, he did not support what the Argents were doing, but he, like others, had his own job and family to think about. He had to protect his son.

Even with the thorough investigation into her activities that the HHS had launched after her death, it had not been uncovered that Claudia fell into one of the seemingly limitless categories of non-human. She had been a spark. She had the ability to use magic through the power of her beliefs. It was an ability that Stiles had inherited.

John had to keep his nose down and stay under the government’s radar to safeguard his son. He couldn’t poke into his wife’s death. He had to pretend not to question the official version of events. He had to stand shoulder to shoulder with people who were the vilest sort of human, and it made him sick.

Because he had been exiled to desk duty, it was often his job to take reports from “concerned” citizens. These racist, specist people loved nothing more than to spy on the Beacon Hills town folk. They called when they heard howls, convinced that their neighbors were secretly weres. They prided themselves on reporting that the town vet had started treating shifters when the local hospital turned them away.

It was through these reports, the ones he shredded before they were ever filed, that John was able to piece together who in the town could or could not be trusted. He just wasn’t sure how to make use of that knowledge. He was under scrutiny and would not act in any way that endangered his son.

With a heavy sigh, John realized he would get no more work done that night. He closed his files and stacked them neatly on the corner of his desk. He carefully arranged them in an alphabetical order based on the third letter of each file name. It made the stack appear random, and allowed John to know when his files had been looked through and shuffled.

The long drive home was done on auto-pilot. It was in the longest quiet stretch of pavement between downtown and his small suburb that he almost swerved off the road. He came around a sharp curve just in time for his headlights to catch a man limping into the underbrush. If he hadn’t caught the wet, red gleam of blood on the man’s side, John might have ignored it.

He parked the SUV on the shoulder and turned his flashlight to shine on the shrubbery. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to come out with your hands up,” he stated in a carrying tone. The bushes rustled and a short man emerged from the undergrowth. It was a man John recognized.

“Seamus! What’s happened?” John rushed to the side of the red-haired man. He and Seamus had been a year apart in high school and had been on the track team together. He knew the small, Irish-American man was a leprechaun, but surely the HSS hadn’t targeted him as a “dangerous” non-human.

The leprechaun wheezed as he staggered to John’s side. “Help me. Please John, My family…”

The human looked over the shorter man’s shoulder to see an equally small woman holding a tiny girl with strawberry-blond curls. A cold hand clenched his heart when he realized that he could not refuse to help his friend even though it would put him and Stiles in danger.

He strode to the back of the SUV and opened the rear lift gate. “Get in, hurry,” he muttered. The family crawled into the back of the vehicle and John tossed an emergency blanket at the group. “Cover up. I’ll get you to someone who might help.”

Before John had a chance to do more than open the driver’s door, a group of so called “hunters” burst onto the road from the trees. As they approached his vehicle, the deputy picked up his radio transmitter and reported to dispatch. “This is officer S49 Stilinski. I’m on Old Crater road just west of the water tower. I have a 397, adult male, possibly injured, on foot heading north through the preserve. Please advise.”

Within moments, a male voice that John didn’t recognize responded through the radio. “Please clarify the description. Do you have a location for the suspect?”

John noted that Seamus had been deemed a “suspect.” He looked over the hood of his SUV and lifted his flashlight as if he were searching the undergrowth. “That is the best description I have. I only caught a glimpse of him before he disappeared into the trees. He might be injured as indicated by blood on some foliage. Over.”

By the time he had finished the short conversation the hunters had arrived at his vehicle. “Good evening Deputy,” the leader of the group spoke in what was meant to be a friendly manner. “I’ve been empowered by the HHS to investigate dangerous sub-humans in the area. Am I to understand that you saw our suspect a few minutes ago?”

John seethed at the term sub-human but allowed no trace of his disgust to show on his face. “I saw a man run into the preserve through that break in the undergrowth. He didn’t respond when I called out to him. I wasn’t able to track him any further, so I reported it.”

The hunter smirked at him. “Well, tracking is our job. I think we can handle it from here. You should be on your way.”

With a frown, John argued, “I should probably stay here until he is apprehended.” He didn’t want to seem too eager to get away.

A deep silence filled the night as the hunter lost all trace of his false joviality. “You need to get back in your vehicle and leave the area. This is HHS business.”

The sound of John’s shoes scuffing in the roadside gravel was loud in the silence. “Right. I’ll be on my way then.” He turned and climbed into his vehicle. He wanted to turn on his flashers and siren to race his injured friend to the emergency room, but he eased slowly off the shoulder of the road and pulled away from the group of hunters.

He began to speak quietly to the family huddled in the rear of the vehicle. “I’m going to take you to Dr. Deaton, the veterinarian, unless there’s somewhere else you would rather go.” He wished he knew for sure that Deaton was sympathetic to non-humans.

The woman’s voice held a soft Irish brogue. “Alan is a good man. He’ll help us. Thank you.”

John’s hands clenched on the steering wheel. His knuckles were white with tension. “It’s the least I can do.” He meant it. He had allowed his grief over Claudia’s death and his fear for his son to make him complacent to the treatment of his fellow man.

Not that he didn’t have selfish reasons for wanting to end the tyranny of the Argents. Under different circumstances, it could easily be Stiles hunted like an animal by HHS agents and their cronies.

The sun was barely creeping over the horizon as Deputy Stilinski pulled into the alley behind the vet’s office. A tired looking Alan Deaton was busy filling water bowls in the outdoor pens when John climbed wearily out of the driver’s door. “Dr. Deaton… I have a problem I hope you can help me with.”

As the rear gate of the SUV opened to reveal the exhausted leprechaun family, John thought he caught a momentary look of surprise flash across the inscrutable features of the normally stoic vet.

John breathed in the crisp morning air and watched the family hurry through the back door of the clinic. He turned to face Deaton and said, “I have to go, for now, but I’ll be back. I think… I think it’s time for me to do some good.”

There was no way he could know it, but John had taken the first steps down a long, dangerous road. With his help and the assistance of numerous like-minded groups around the country, the Argent administration would be overthrown.


End file.
